Ah, that return to the forest where Rima dwelt, after so anxious day,
when the declining sun shone hotly still, and the green woodland shadows
were so grateful! The coolness, the sense of security, allayed the fever
and excitement I had suffered on the open savannah; I walked leisurely,
pausing often to listen to some bird voice or to admire some rare
insect or parasitic flower shining star-like in the shade. There was a
strangely delightful sensation in me. I likened myself to a child that,
startled at something it had seen while out playing in the sun, flies
to its mother to feel her caressing hand on its cheek and forget its
tremors. And describing what I felt in that way, I was a little ashamed
and laughed at myself; nevertheless the feeling was very sweet. At that
moment Mother and Nature seemed one and the same thing. As I kept to the
more open part of the wood, on its southernmost border, the red flame
of the sinking sun was seen at intervals through the deep humid green
of the higher foliage. How every object it touched took from it a new
wonderful glory! At one spot, high up where the foliage was scanty, and
slender bush ropes and moss depended like broken cordage from a dead
limb--just there, bathing itself in that glory-giving light, I noticed
a fluttering bird, and stood still to watch its antics. Now it would
cling, head downwards, to the slender twigs, wings and tail open; then,
righting itself, it would flit from waving line to line, dropping lower
and lower; and anon soar upwards a distance of twenty feet and alight to
recommence the flitting and swaying and dropping towards the earth. It
was one of those birds that have a polished plumage, and as it moved
this way and that, flirting its feathers, they caught the beams and
shone at moments like glass or burnished metal. Suddenly another bird of
the same kind dropped down to it as if from the sky, straight and swift
as a falling stone; and the first bird sprang up to meet the comer, and
after rapidly wheeling round each other for a moment, they fled away in
company, screaming shrilly through the wood, and were instantly lost to
sight, while their jubilant cries came back fainter and fainter at each
repetition.
I envied them not their wings: at that moment earth did not seem fixed
and solid beneath me, nor I bound by gravity to it. The faint, floating
clouds, the blue infinite heaven itself, seemed not more ethereal and
free than I, or the ground I walked on. The low, stony hills on my right
hand, of which I caught occasional glimpses through the trees, looking
now blue and delicate in the level rays, were no more than the billowy
projections on the moving cloud of earth: the trees of unnumbered
kinds--great more, cecropia, and greenheart, bush and fern and suspended
lianas, and tall palms balancing their feathery foliage on slender
stems--all was but a fantastic mist embroidery covering the surface of
that floating cloud on which my feet were set, and which floated with me
near the sun.
The red evening flame had vanished from the summits of the trees, the
sun was setting, the woods in shadow, when I got to the end of my walk.
I did not approach the house on the side of the door, yet by some means
those within became aware of my presence, for out they came in a great
hurry, Rima leading the way, Nuflo behind her, waving his arms and
shouting. But as I drew near, the girl dropped behind and stood
motionless regarding me, her face pallid and showing strong excitement.
I could scarcely remove my eyes from her eloquent countenance: I seemed
to read in it relief and gladness mingled with surprise and something
like vexation. She was piqued perhaps that I had taken her by surprise,
that after much watching for me in the wood I had come through it
undetected when she was indoors.
“Happy the eyes that see you!” shouted the old man, laughing
boisterously.
“Happy are mine that look on Rima again,” I answered. “I have been long
absent.”
“Long--you may say so,” returned Nuflo. “We had given you up. We
said that, alarmed at the thought of the journey to Riolama, you had
abandoned us.”
“WE said!” exclaimed Rima, her pallid face suddenly flushing. “I spoke
differently.”
“Yes, I know--I know!” he said airily, waving his hand. “You said that
he was in danger, that he was kept against his will from coming. He is
present now--let him speak.”
“She was right,” I said. “Ah, Nuflo, old man, you have lived long, and
got much experience, but not insight--not that inner vision that sees
further than the eyes.”
“No, not that--I know what you mean,” he answered. Then, tossing his
hand towards the sky, he added: “The knowledge you speak of comes from
there.”
The girl had been listening with keen interest, glancing from one to the
other. “What!” she spoke suddenly, as if unable to keep silence, “do you
think, grandfather, that SHE tells me--when there is danger--when the
rain will cease--when the wind will blow--everything? Do I not ask and
listen, lying awake at night? She is always silent, like the stars.”
Then, pointing to me with her finger, she finished:
“HE knows so many things! Who tells them to HIM?”
“But distinguish, Rima. You do not distinguish the great from the
little,” he answered loftily. “WE know a thousand things, but they are
things that any man with a forehead can learn. The knowledge that comes
from the blue is not like that--it is more important and miraculous. Is
it not so, senor?” he ended, appealing to me.
“Is it, then, left for me to decide?” said I, addressing the girl.
But though her face was towards me, she refused to meet my look and was
silent. Silent, but not satisfied: she doubted still, and had perhaps
caught something in my tone that strengthened her doubt.
Old Nuflo understood the expression. “Look at me, Rima,” he said,
drawing himself up. “I am old, and he is young--do I not know best? I
have spoken and have decided it.”
Still that unconvinced expression, and her face turned expectant to me.
“Am I to decide?” I repeated.
“Who, then?” she said at last, her voice scarcely more than a murmur;
yet there was reproach in the tone, as if she had made a long speech and
I had tyrannously driven her to it.
“Thus, then, I decide,” said I. “To each of us, as to every kind of
animal, even to small birds and insects, and to every kind of plant,
there is given something peculiar--a fragrance, a melody, a special
instinct, an art, a knowledge, which no other has. And to Rima has been
given this quickness of mind and power to divine distant things; it is
hers, just as swiftness and grace and changeful, brilliant colour are
the hummingbird’s; therefore she need not that anyone dwelling in the
blue should instruct her.”
The old man frowned and shook his head; while she, after one swift, shy
glance at my face, and with something like a smile flitting over her
delicate lips, turned and re-entered the house.
I felt convinced from that parting look that she had understood me, that
my words had in some sort given her relief; for, strong as was her faith
in the supernatural, she appeared as ready to escape from it, when a way
of escape offered, as from the limp cotton gown and constrained manner
worn in the house. The religion and cotton dress were evidently remains
of her early training at the settlement of Voa.
Old Nuflo, strange to say, had proved better than his word. Instead of
inventing new causes for delay, as I had imagined would be the case,
he now informed me that his preparations for the journey were all but
complete, that he had only waited for my return to set out.
Rima soon left us in her customary way, and then, talking by the fire,
I gave an account of my detention by the Indians and of the loss of my
revolver, which I thought very serious.
“You seem to think little of it,” I said, observing that he took it very
coolly. “Yet I know not how I shall defend myself in case of an attack.”
“I have no fear of an attack,” he answered. “It seems to me the same
thing whether you have a revolver or many revolvers and carbines and
swords, or no revolver--no weapon at all. And for a very simple reason.
While Rima is with us, so long as we are on her business, we are
protected from above. The angels, senor, will watch over us by day and
night. What need of weapons, then, except to procure food?”
“Why should not the angels provide us with food also?” said I.
“No, no, that is a different thing,” he returned. “That is a small and
low thing, a necessity common to all creatures, which all know how to
meet. You would not expect an angel to drive away a cloud of mosquitoes,
or to remove a bush-tick from your person. No, sir, you may talk of
natural gifts, and try to make Rima believe that she is what she is, and
knows what she knows, because, like a humming-bird or some plants with
a peculiar fragrance, she has been made so. It is wrong, senor, and,
pardon me for saying it, it ill becomes you to put such fables into her
head.”
I answered, with a smile: “She herself seems to doubt what you believe.”
“But, senor, what can you expect from an ignorant girl like Rima? She
knows nothing, or very little, and will not listen to reason. If she
would only remain quietly indoors, with her hair braided, and pray and
read her Catechism, instead of running about after flowers and birds and
butterflies and such unsubstantial things, it would be better for both
of us.”
“In what way, old man?”
“Why, it is plain that if she would cultivate the acquaintance of the
people that surround her--I mean those that come to her from her sainted
mother--and are ready to do her bidding in everything, she could make
it more safe for us in this place. For example, there is Runi and his
people; why should they remain living so near us as to be a constant
danger when a pestilence of small-pox or some other fever might easily
be sent to kill them off?”
“And have you ever suggested such a thing to your grandchild?”
He looked surprised and grieved at the question. “Yes, many times,
senor,” he said. “I should have been a poor Christian had I not
mentioned it. But when I speak of it she gives me a look and is gone,
and I see no more of her all day, and when I see her she refuses even to
answer me--so perverse, so foolish is she in her ignorance; for, as you
can see for yourself, she has no more sense or concern about what is
most important than some little painted fly that flits about all day
long without any object.”